Metis diplomacy: The everyday politics of becoming a sovereign state
| Author | Gëzim Visoka |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0010836718807503 |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010836718807503
Cooperation and Conflict
2019, Vol. 54(2) 167 –190
© The Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0010836718807503
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Metis diplomacy: The everyday
politics of becoming a
sovereign state
Gëzim Visoka
Abstract
How do emerging states obtain international recognition and secure membership of international
organizations in contemporary world politics? Using the concept of ‘metis’, this article explores
the role of everyday prudent and situated discourses, diplomatic performances and entanglements
in the enactment of sovereign statehood and the overcoming of external contestation. To this
end, it describes Kosovo’s diplomatic approach to becoming a sovereign state by obtaining
international recognition and securing membership of international organizations. Drawing on
institutional ethnographic research and first-hand observations, the article argues that Kosovo’s
success in consolidating its sovereign statehood has been the situational assemblage of multiple
discourses, practiced through a broad variety of performative actions and shaped by a complex
entanglement with global assemblages of norms, actors, relations and events. Accordingly, this
study contributes to the conceptualization of the everyday in diplomatic practice by offering an
account of how micro-practices feed into macro-practices in world politics.
Keywords
Kosovo, metis diplomacy, recognition, state-becoming, the everyday
Introduction
Sovereignty is one of the major concepts underpinning contemporary domestic and inter-
national politics, while states continue to remain core units of international society
(James, 1999). Despite many critiques of the state, independent statehood remains an
ontological solvent to achieve collective self-determination for many ethnic groups.
Although there is extensive research on the politics, legality and ethics of the right to
self-determination, less work has been undertaken on the micro-politics and everyday
practices of how independent statehood is achieved. Existing debates on state-becoming
generally rest upon systemic factors, normative institutions and the preferences of great
Corresponding author:
Gëzim Visoka, School of Law and Government, Dublin City University, Glasnevin, Dublin 9, Ireland.
Email: gezim.visoka@dcu.ie
807503CAC0010.1177/0010836718807503Cooperation and ConflictVisoka
research-article2018
Article
168 Cooperation and Conflict 54(2)
powers (Coggins, 2014; Krasner, 1999), thereby ignoring the everyday agency of unrec-
ognized subjects in world politics. The everyday turn in international relations (IR)
remains underdeveloped, both theoretically and empirically. So far, the notion of every-
day is mainly associated with peripheral sites of power and the exceptionality of sover-
eignty, as well as non-elite practices and knowledge. Yet, the everydayness of elites,
institutions and diplomatic practices where sovereignty is assembled, constituted, circu-
lated and articulated through linguistic and performative actions is insufficiently explored
(see Sending et al., 2015). Disentangling the everyday politics and diplomatic practices
of new states is necessary to understand how new states build capacity to enter in inter-
national relations, which is one of the essential features of modern and recognizable
statehood.
Using James C. Scott’s (1998) concept of ‘metis’ knowledge, this study puts forward
‘metis diplomacy’ as a conceptual sketch to depict the everyday prudent assemblage of
situated and practical diplomatic knowledge and skills that guide the writing, performing
and entangling of sovereign statehood and the overcoming of external contestation.
Metis signifies circumstantial and practical knowledge as a defining feature of bottom-
up forms of social and political agency. Through the lens of metis practices, this article
seeks to expand the study of the everyday by looking how elites, namely diplomatic
corps, of emerging states practise state-becoming through everyday discourses, perfor-
mances and entanglements with other states. Discourse at the centre of the study of
everyday politics of statehood not only helps in viewing IR as intertextual relations, but
also reveals how state-making is first and foremost an everyday text-making endeavour
(Epstein, 2008). Metaphorically, wording sovereignty plays a significant role in ‘world-
ing’ sovereignty. However, discourse without performance remains a textual artefact
short of social power. Performativity is what gives life to sovereignty. Diplomatic perfor-
mances rely on the art of circumstances, which entails using situational and tactical
knowledge to maximize effects (Butler, 2010; Scott, 1998). While everyday discursive
and performative practices capture diplomatic inter-actions and mutually constitutive
dynamics, the everyday is the site where agencies entangle, whereby intra-actions –
namely related and unrelated actions, events and processes – may produce effects with-
out direct discursive and performative encounter (Aradau et al., 2015). In this regard,
both situated and remote global assemblages are crucial for explaining the complex cau-
sation and entanglement that facilitates and obscures acting in world politics. Accordingly,
the concept of metis diplomacy assists in demonstrating how the everyday is the site
where language, performance and agency not only challenge the existing international
order but also contribute to the remaking of world politics.
This conceptual framework is applied to the case of Kosovo in order to explore the
everyday dynamics of becoming a sovereign state under conditions of limited international
recognition and acceptance in international society (see Visoka, 2018; Newman and
Visoka, 2018). The absence of certain sovereign attributes of modern statehood makes
Kosovo a suitable case for understanding how sovereignty is enacted within the conditions
of its absence. As Claire Monagle and Dimitris Vardoulakis (2013: 1) argue, ‘sovereignty
exists only in moments of absence, only when referentiality is abandoned and the nothing
is paramount’. The analysis focuses on how metis diplomacy has been applied by Kosovo’s
diplomats in order to obtain diplomatic recognition and membership of international
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